Celtic have bizarrely spent the summer extending Ange Postecoglou's to-do list

By David Walton

August 2, 2021

This was supposed to be a summer in which Celtic went through their to-do list and ticked off an extensive array of tasks one by one.

Instead, the club has been extending the manager’s pre/early-season tasks on a consistent basis.

Whenever Ange Postecoglou has taken one step forward, it doesn’t feel as though we’re any closer to dragging us out of the hole we’re in. Mostly because of the baffling decisions made when it comes to the first-team squad.

Allowing Kris Ajer to leave before a replacement was even signed should never have been the case. It left us short and without any cover for the Midtjylland tie – something the board will need to carry the can over.

When that replacement did arrive in Carl Starfelt, Celtic decided to create another problem for themselves. Olivier Ntcham’s departure now leaves a central-midfielder high on Postecoglou’s list of targets.

In the early part of the summer, Jonjoe Kenny was allowed to leave without any replacements having been sourced. The same goes for the left-back position, where we lost Diego Laxalt. You can throw left-winger Mohamed Elyounoussi into this mix as well. Patryk Klimala departed also as we created even more gaps ahead of the summer.

Just as many players leaving Celtic as coming in

Their contracts all ended in June. Progress on replacements for any of them has felt non-existent. Instead of having players ready for Postecoglou to go after, we’re left scrambling around in the final month of the window looking for bodies.

Celtic have allowed player after player to leave the football club and have failed to replace them. If the club had provided the new manager with a list of targets for every position, things would’ve moved much more quickly.

Instead, we have a manager in place who’s still integrating his own methods into players that simply aren’t his. All the while the club has been happy to allow his to-do list to grow as the summer goes on. Our priority has always been to improve on the full-back areas next, but now he has to concern himself with a worrying lack of central-midfield options after Ntcham’s departure.

You could say Celtic have been left with more problems now than they had at the end of the season. At least back then we still had several months to sort our problems out.

Now, we have under a month to go before the window shuts and a host of reinforcements are still required. Yet when Postecoglou tries to make moves, it feels as though the club adds another problem into the mix.

It’s a massive month for the football club. A month that will shape exactly how our season is going to go. Not just in terms of results, but in terms of recruitment. Celtic have given Postecoglou a big enough to-do list as it is, now it’s time to start whittling the tasks down.

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